The present invention relates to document processing systems and specifically to a ticket system, as for processing transportation tickets and boarding passes with attendant passenger control.
Traditional airline tickets comprise multiple-sheet bundles, each sheet for a flight leg and bearing various data, as passenger name, flight number, departure and destination locations, flight time and so on. Such traditional ticket sheets as conventionally used are susceptible to misuse, yet impose substantial inconvenience to passengers and require considerable attention by airline personnel. Recognizing the problem, government agencies and private groups have sponsored development efforts to enhance airport security while reducing passenger inconvenience. Among other suggestions, an improved ticket has been suggested, formed of card stock for ease of processing, bearing a magnetic stripe and including a boarding pass. It also has been proposed that data regarding the passenger, the airline, the flight number and so on be printed on the sheet and recorded on the magnetic stripe. The magnetic stripe also could be encoded with data relating to the passenger's location and the status of the passenger's baggage. While such a ticket format offers various possibilities, a need exists for an economical ticket-processing unit capable of rapidly, easily and accurately processing the ticket sheets while enabling enhanced airport security with relative passenger convenience.
In general, the present invention comprises a ticket-processing system for processing composite, separable (severable) sheets or documents, as for example, sheets including an airline passenger ticket and a boarding pass, which sheets bear a magnetic stripe to facilitate control and processing. Within the system, sheets are moved along select paths as for magnetic transducing and related operations of printing, bursting, canceling and sorting. A range of selective operations enables the use of a single unit to effectively process tickets at a point of entry as a boarding gate. Other operations include rejection, special processing and boarding-pass monitoring.